


Enter Sandman

by ThatwasHOT



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Canon-Typical Violence, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Mindfuck, Team red pill, The End, The Sandman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 19:51:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20935802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasHOT/pseuds/ThatwasHOT
Summary: (WARNING: This is the ending to the story –Under Your Bed, In Your Closet, In Your Head– Be sure you have read Chapter 23 of that story, and have chosen your ending before reading further. If you have not read that work at all I suggest you do so first. The following will make no sense otherwise. But as always, do as you please. Team Free Will!)





	1. Say your prayers

**Author's Note:**

> I got my finger on the trigger  
But I don't know who to trust  
When I look into your eyes  
There's just devils and dust  
\- [Springsteen](https://youtu.be/9vQHqPyxFq4)

**  
**

“We hunt evil, Sam. It is all I know. I can’t run from this…I’m sorry.” Before Sam could try to stop him again or let the fear get the better of him, Dean turned the knob and swung wide the door.

A flurry of moths came out from behind the door and sand like water poured out into the room until it was ankle deep around Dean’s legs.

“Come out and face me!” Dean yelled into the blackness beyond the door. “I invoke you, I invite you! I demand it! Whatever the hell I have to say, get your ass out here! Show yourself.”

“Oh, Dean,” Sam shuddered behind him, “No.”

Dean’s mouth dropped open in surprise and he backed away from what lay beyond. He was expecting an ancient evil. Something nightmares and hell spawned together that walked this world to the terror of all. A dark and horrible thing, a vision that caused his eyes to ache and his stomach to roll. Something he could plunge a knife into. What he saw was…

Sam. Another Sam. As real as the first. 

His face was enraged as he stepped in to the room. He walked towards Dean. He wasn’t even sure which of the Sam’s had said it, but clear as day he heard:

**“DEAN, WAKE UP!” **

Dean’s eyes flew open. 

Everything above him was red and shadows. There were muffled voices above him, his vision was blurry. He was on his back on a cold, hard surface and his chest ached. He tried to pull in a breath but no air came to him and the corners of his vision darkened once more. He tried to get his arms to cooperate, to move, but they only flopped at his sides. He needed air. He used everything he had and got his hands moving. He tore at the red that was keeping him down and got a handful of…flowers?

There was a thick blanket of poppy flowers over top of him, pressing on him. He ripped them away, sending moths flying from the blossoms. He sat up from the cold stone altar he was lying on and gasped in a breath. 

He was in a cave, a sand filled monsteresque cave. His heart pounded in his chest as he continued gasping in the much needed air. Then he heard it. 

Sam was kneeling near him, eyes closed, holding an ancient looking book open and chanting as if in a trance. Then he said, “Dean, Wake up. Wake up. Wake up. Dean, Wake up.” 

“Sam?” 

“Dean!” Sam said scrambling to his side, dropping the book to the sand. “It worked!”

Sam’s own face was pale and bone tired looking. Dirt and sand were clinging to everything, blood here, god knows what there. And his eyes...his eyes were wild sandstorms in their sockets. 

“Stay with me, Dean.”

Dean closed his eyes. He didn’t know if this was real! He didn’t know what was real any more at all, his head had been played with far too much now. He pulled the gun from his jacket and pointed it blindly. “Back away from me.”

He shouldn’t have opened that door. He should have known this wouldn’t have been a straight fight, not with a dream god. 

**“DEAN, WAKE UP!” **

Dean was suddenly standing in the honeymoon suite of the Sleep Eazy Motel. Everything was like it had been before, nothing broken, heart shaped items adorning the pink walls. Sam was standing in front of him, saying “Dean, wake up. Come on man, please.” His hands were held out placatingly, palms open at his sides to show no weapons. He was still shirtless, but no cuts on him this time. His stance said he was afraid. Dean realized that was because he had his gun out, pointed directly at Sam. 

“Dean? …It’s the Sandman, isn’t it?” This Sam’s eyes also were swirling like a sandstorm as he spoke.

Dean nodded trying not to look directly at him. 

“This is me, this is _me_. I woke back up here just a few minutes ago myself. The Sandman is screwing with both our heads. I have a way to stop it, but you have to put the gun down.” 

Dean didn’t budge. 

“There’s a light at the end of the tunnel this time, Dean, I swear. But you have to trust me.”

**DEAN, WAKE UP! **

Dean opened his eyes. He was back in the dark, amongst the poppies, but now he was on his feet. The gun was pointed at Sam. Point blank at his heart. Dean’s hand shook.

“Dean,” Sam said, fear woven all throughout his voice. “It’s me.” He looked sick and he held his side as he moved like he was injured.

His eyes were no longer swirls of sand, but his normal hazel gaze. “Dean, listen to me. It’s a Sandman. It wants you. I don’t know why, but it only wants you. Don’t let it take you again. You stay with me, you hear me? You goddamn stay alive and stay with me! You don’t let this thing win.” 

Dean’s hands were shaking violently now, but he kept the gun pointed. He tried to figure out a way to tell if this was real. It felt real. 

Sam turned his head across the room and after a wet painful cough called out, “Cas, pin that thing down already.” 

A voice in the far off corner replied, “If we finish this while Dean is still under it is going to kill him.” 

**DEAN, WAKE UP! **

“I love you. Please. Don’t let him take you from me now. Whatever he is showing you, no matter how real it feels, it isn’t. It’s a nightmare.” 

“It’s you,” Dean choked out, his lungs burning here too, “It is Sam on the other side. He is saying you are the Sandman.” 

“This is real Dean, can’t you tell?” Sam walked towards him.

Dean held out the gun to stop him, a warning look in his eye. Sam looked down at it, but continued moving forward undaunted until his bare chest was pressed into the barrel. 

“If you are really that convinced then…shoot me.”

Those words sent a pulse of terror through Dean. 

“I’m not afraid, Dean. Because I know you won’t let him win. You’ll do the right thing. Because I love you and you love me. And that is stronger than anything he is showing you.” Sam said it with such conviction Dean almost lowered the gun. 

**DEAN, WAKE UP! **

Dean was looking at Sam in the sandy cave. The wind was picking up around them. 

“It is like he can’t hear me again,” he overheard Sam say. Dean felt dizzy and sick, like he had been spun in circles too many times.

“We are going to have to do it now,” Castiel replied. He was across the room in the dimly lit space and Dean couldn’t make him out in the gloom.

“You’ll kill Dean!” Sam yelled back.

“Dean would not want you to die here, Sam. If we wait any longer it _is_ going to kill you. Dean would not forgive me. We have to do this now, or it will kill us all.”

“No!” Sam yelled. “Just leave, Cas. Go. I’ll stay with Dean, I’ll…stay with Dean. I’ll find a way.” 

“You are stubborn,” the angel said loudly over the howl of the wind and it was clear he wasn’t going to leave either of them there.

Sam turned back to Dean, “Are you here? Are you with me right now? Tell me you can hear me.” 

“Sam,” Dean said, “how do I know this is you?”

“Listen to me. Whatever you're seeing over there in that dream, it's a trick. Okay? It's not real.”

But Dean kept the gun pointed.

Sam walked toward him, right up and pressed his chest against the muzzle, a pissed off look on his face. “This is real, damn it!” His hair was whipping in the wind around them as he grabbed a hold of Dean’s jacket and gave him a hard shake. “This is real!” 

Dean kept the gun against him, shoved it harder into his chest. He could swear he felt the pounding of Sam’s heart through the weapon. 

Sam looked down at the gun then glared back at Dean. “I’m dying out here while you are sleeping it off in there with that thing. So shoot me, Dean. Do what you gotta do. But don’t give up, don’t you quit on me! You keep fighting and you wake up.”

**“DEAN, WAKE UP!” **

Dean was back in the hotel room once more. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Dean admitted, still pointing his gun, feeling like he had lost his mind. 

“Dean,” Sam said imploringly. He put his hand out and pressed it against their amulet on Dean’s chest. “_This _is real.” 

There was a whirling sound around Dean, and the room began to fade into the cave of poppies, into the motel room again. Dean began going back and forth between two worlds so quickly, it was like he was looking at both Sams at once. 

“_He_ is the sandman,” both Sams said in perfect synchronicity. “So don’t listen to him,” they both said with perfect timing again. “Dean, I’m Sam!”

Both eyed Dean again, frustration on their faces as if to say – _that son of a bitch is wearing my face! How can you not know it is me?_

“Oh, God, Sammy.” He didn’t know which he was speaking to any more. He didn’t know. Oh god, he didn’t know! 

Dean had come to destroy the monster’s world, but he saw now that it was his own life the Sandman wanted burned to the ground.

To Be Continued... right now! →


	2. Enter Sandman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
  
  

> 
> Holy water cannot help you now  
Thousand armies couldn't keep me out  
I don't want your money  
I don't want your crown  
See I've come to burn  
Your kingdom down  
–[Florence + the Machine ](https://youtu.be/RUMAhf9nMTA)

“Sammy,” Dean said over the howl of wind, the gun still pressed against his brother’s chest. “Tell me what I have to do.” 

Sam put a hand to Dean’s shoulder, his grip felt solid and real.

With a fond squeeze Sam said, “Do what you have to. Poughkeepsie.”

Dean focused his eyes and looked directly at Sam.

The walls of the motel faded into view once more. He moved the gun away from this Sam’s chest, lowering it to his side. Sam’s shoulders slumped from their tension in visible relief. He closed his eyes, a smile coming out as he pulled Dean into his arms in an embrace. He nuzzled against Dean’s cheek. 

Dean didn’t smile. There were only two outcomes here and either way Sam would be safer. Either way. There was only one way out for good.

He made his choice... 

“It is going to be okay. I’m gonna fix this,” Sam said, his warm lips traveling against his skin, pressing a long kiss into Dean's temple. And the world did feel more solid under his feet, for just a moment, just a moment, and everything here was taking hold again. “You are mine. Now and forever, Dean.” 

Dean put a hand on Sam’s chest and pushed as he took one long step backwards, much to Sam’s confusion. Dean pressed the gun against the temple of his own head where Sam had just kissed him. He wouldn't give him time to make a speech, show him photos, change his mind. Not this time. 

“…Bye, Sam.” 

“Wait! No!”

Dean pulled the trigger. 

***

Dean gasped, his green eyes flying open wide.

“Cas!” His brother was yelling, the wind howling over his voice. “He is out now, out for good, so pin that fucker down!”

The sound of the gunshot was still ringing in Dean’s ears as he began to cough up a great torrent of wet sand. His body hurt, his lungs on fire, he was covered in sweat and muck.

_This_ was the real world. 

Sam got the gun away from him on this side, pulled it out just in time for the shot to fire over Dean’s head instead of through it. Because _real_ Sam always knew Dean’s tells. 

He made the right choice. 

“Sam, I can’t hold it,” Castiel said. But just as Dean registered it the angel lost his grip on the thing he had been struggling with. It dropped to the ground and vanished. A second later a spray of sand was kicked up like it was a shark in water as it headed away from the trench coat-clad angel, through the sand at his feet, and straight for Dean.

It rose from the sand. Its sandpaper-rough hand gripped his ankle and pulled. Dean yelled as he fell hard into the sand as the creature rose fully, pulling him in and chanting something dark. It raised its head to look up at Dean... 

Sam shot the thing point blank in the face with Dean’s gun. The face split in half before Dean could see it, letting out a nightmarish shriek from both sides. It released Dean’s ankle to grab at its ruined head, pressing it back together but still leaving it grotesque as it stumbled backwards. 

Cas hauled it up with all his strength and slammed it into the cavern wall once more. A sigil glowed above it.

Sam ran, crashing his weight against it to help keep it in place. The thing was screaming and lashing its arms, looking like a melting mannequin. 

Castiel slashed a ritual blade into the creature’s chest, carving symbols into its skin as it howled in agony. When the final symbol was scrawled across its chest, with sand, not blood leaking from the wounds, the creature at last stilled. A temporary spell, along with the sigil above, enacted to hold it in place.

It began to solidify into a human-looking figure. The wind around them died away to silence. 

Sam released his grip on the captive creature and turned back to Dean. Sam was breathing heavy, but he smiled and gave him a nod. He helped him back to his feet.

They had won this round and for Dean a nod wasn’t going to cut it. He pulled Sam towards him, a hand wound in Sam’s hair as he leaned in to kiss his socks off in victory.

“Whoa!” Sam said, pushing Dean away from him with a firm hand. “What are you doing?” 

Something terrible jolted through Dean. In an automatic response Dean dropped down a hand for their amulet and knew the awful horrible truth a fraction of a second before his hand grasped at the _nothing_ around his neck. 

“Oh god.” Dean stumbled back away from him. 

The memory returned of him holding his amulet out over a trash can, the hollow sound when it hit the bottom…it was much the same sound Dean’s own heart was making now.

Sam’s voice dropped back into fear and concern. “Dean, it’s me. Your brother, Sam. Are you still seeing things from the dream? Tell me! I need to know you are fully out before we can finish this. Are you here with me still?”

Cas was still pinning the creature, but it did not fight him now. It remained motionless. Only its hazel eyes finally moved to glare at Dean over the angel’s shoulder. It had finally settled into its solid form.

It was wearing Sam’s face. 

Dean’s memories flooded back in nightmaric pulses, one painful blow after the next, an endless crash of tsunami waves against the shore of his mind.

“Dad is…”

His father hadn’t been there making threats. His father was dead.

“Bobby…”

He was long dead too. Jo, Benny, Kevin, Charlie...he hardly knew anyone topside any more. The end of the world was fucking nigh again. And then the final blow, the big one...

“And you…”

This was the real world…and Sam…this Sam, real Sam, he wasn’t, he didn’t....

_Sammy wasn’t in love with him. _

His legs couldn’t hold him anymore. He went down to the ground with the weight of the knowledge of everything hitting him all at once, crushing him.

Sam crumpled with him, followed him down, with an arm on his shoulder. “Dean? What’s happening? You’re safe! It is over. You are okay.”

“No,” Dean said shaking his head. It will never be okay again. Because there _were_ worse things than death. 

“I wish it had killed me,” Dean said, shoving Sam away from him. “Oh, god. I wish it had killed me!”

The dream god Hypnos, knowing Dean’s realizations, leaned towards him as far as he could past Castiel who was still blocking the way. His face, the mask of Sam’s face, glaring down at him.

“_That_,” Hypnos drew out the word, “was for what you did to my brother.” 

“No!” Dean yelled with that confirmation. 

“Revenge for what you did to Death. He offered his help, and how did you repay him? You turned on him. This would be his vengeance. The vast emptiness inside that only death or sleep could ease and you will be denied both.”

His subconscious had been trying to warn him all along. It kept putting the gun into his hand, it sent the vision of his father in to protect him from this, to tell him to get away, let that dream die, but he had fought it with everything he had. It had been right in saying this monster was by far the worst thing Dean would ever face. 

There was an awful, horrible sound. Dean put both his hands to his ears to try to block it out but he couldn’t. 

Sam was never his, he never would be.

Tears were not an adequate response to this kind of loss. Madness was. The awful sound he had just heard, he realized, was his own laughter. A deep crazed laugh of insanity. He tossed his head back and howled a laugh out to all the world. After all, it had all been one monstrous joke!

Sam got to his feet, grabbing at Hypnos and slamming him back into the wall.

“What have you done to him?” Sam yelled.

Dean looked once more, couldn’t help it. Sam: beautiful, heroic, and heart-breaking.

“He is his own worst nightmare,” the Sandman said. “I barely lifted a finger, just sat back and watched him destroy himself, and oh…he did.” His words themselves reveled in the victory, his revenge on Dean for having put a Scythe through his brother Death. But he seemed to be growling it out more at Sam than at Dean.

Dean’s deranged laughter rang hard through the quiet of the place now, echoing back all around them. He sunk further into madness faster than any quicksand.

Sam couldn’t stand it, kept his rage focused on the beast. Castiel only gave Dean sideways glances, a deep frown of concern on his face. Even the monster turned its eyes away from watching a strong man…break.

Sam slammed the monster against the wall repeatedly, trying to bash the things head in, nothing else he could do, while staring into a reflection of his own face. The beast only met his eyes unfazed. It smiled.

“Let’s do this then,” Sam said. The angel beside him withdrew the angel blade from inside his coat. 

“You can’t kill me with that,” Hypnos said with a confident sneer. “I am endless.”

“If you can kill Death, everything else is easy,” Sam spat at the beast wearing his face. “But for now, this will have to do.” 

Sam bent to the ground quickly drawing a sigil in the sand near the monster's feet, the same as the one painted high on the wall above it: two crescent moons and a seven pointed star. He put down a bowl in the center of the symbol on the ground and quickly dumped items from a sack into it. A clear liquid, hemlock, sand, feathers of an owl, and other strange ingredients. 

“Cas?”

“Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters,” Cas said in a monotone voice as he pressed the tip of the angel blade into his palm, cutting it. The wound glowed blue for a moment before turning red with blood. 

Sam chanted loudly, “Jam tibi impero et præcipio maligne spiritus! Adiuro vos refrenetur nocendi facultas_. _Constringo Constrixi Constrictum - Vir de Somnio!”

Castiel held his hand out over the bowl of items at the monster's feet. He made a fist, tightened it until a gush of blood rained down onto the items. 

But nothing happened. 

The creature laughed.

Castiel looked up at Sam. “We must be missing something.” 

“We are not! That was everything.” 

The Sandman began to move, beginning to break through the temporary holding spell carved into his chest once more. 

“Perhaps the ‘power of the sandman’ ingredient was not sand?” Cas said, struggling with the beast, trying to keep it pinned to the wall, but every time he got a grip the thing shifted and moved under his fingers. 

“But sand is all it is!” Sam yelled, frantically. The monster shoved back at Castiel, as part of the spell on his chest vanished as the sand moved and shifted into new skin. 

“What else could it be?” Sam said again as he moved to help Cas struggle with the creature, both of them fighting to keep it in place now.

“It’s the poppies,” Dean said, all but forgotten behind them.

“What?”

“The damn flowers!”

Sam turned back to him, “Dean, how sure are you?” 

Dean ripped the closest flowers up by their roots and flung them into the bowl. There was a flash of light. 

***

Dean paced the small length of the motel room they had booked for the night. He couldn’t look at his brother, couldn’t stand to be surrounded by the same four walls as him now without wanting to break things, break himself. Dean still laughed every so often, in a manic, dark and desperate way every time he thought about what he had done.

“Dean…”

“I’m not going to the loony bin, Sam, I just need some space!”

He circled the suffocating room once more. He felt like he still couldn’t breathe. Like those poppies had gotten inside his lungs, and he’d never be able to breathe around his brother again. 

Sam stood by the door, blocking the exit, watching Dean pace. “Dean, you are in, like, shell shock, man. I just meant maybe it would help if you talked to someone. A professional could help.” 

“Sure, sure. Hey there, uh, Mr. Headshrinker, my mind got _royally! fucked! over!_ by a sleep monster. Can you help me? I mean... seriously, Sam?” 

“Maybe we can find one with...an open mind.” 

Dean shook his head and really laughed, like that was the best joke he’d heard all year. 

“Okay, so it’s not likely we will find a doctor with a mind _that _open, but you can always talk to me. I can help.”

Sam wasn’t in the best shape himself, but he would live. Cas did what he could to heal him, though a lot of the damage was of the variety that he deemed “beyond his powers.” It would take time to heal. 

Dean had hoped Cas would have stayed. Somehow it seemed like a little breathing room with him there. But Castiel had put a hand on his shoulder, blue eyes looking at him even more curiously than ever. He had told Dean, without further explanation, that what happened in the monster’s world was “not appropriate.” Cas vanished with a rustling of feathers leaving Dean horrified at what he might now know.

Sam finally moved away from the door. He sat down on the bed and winced in pain. “You can’t shoulder whatever that thing did to you alone.”

“A little sharing and caring won’t fix this.” 

“I know that but…just try? Talk to me.” 

If Dean never had to say another word for the rest of his life, he’d be too happy about it. But Sam wanted to talk, _fine!_

“Do you remember Flagstaff, when you ran off?” 

Sam was not following his sudden jump in conversation. “Uh, what? Flagstaff? Yeah, I-I remember.”

“Why did you run away, Sam?” They had never talked about this. Not in the real world. Dean needed to know now. The truth.

Sam shrugged, his hands tightening at his sides. “What does that have to do with–”

“You wanted to talk. Now answer the damn question.”

“Dean, I-I really don’t know. I was a kid. You and dad were getting on my nerves that summer, it was hot as hell. Freedom sounded good. I don’t know why I left, I just…did it.” 

Of course Sam hadn’t left because he was in love with Dean. He left, as easy as a breath in and out of his chest, because Dean didn’t mean anything to him. No, worse, he left to get far away from this life and from Dean, because even back then he wanted no part of either. 

Dean blinked back his tears, grabbing up his jacket. That was all the talking he could handle. 

“Yeah, well, that is how I feel right now. I need some air.”

He got the door opened but somehow Sam had moved his big stupid moose body in between him and the cold night beyond. In the distance rose the rumble-hum of freeway traffic. 

“Dean…” Sam put a hand out to touch Dean’s arm, trying to comfort him, make him stay.

Dean put his own hands up to push him off, only to realize he couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t even put a hand on him to push him away from him, without wanting to punch his fist through something. And that something might end up being Sam’s face. 

He instead dodged the well meaning hand, turned sideways, and moved fast around his brother, who was in no shape for a fight.

He pointed a finger at him, “Don’t follow me.” 

“You always do this. You can't just keep this crap in, Dean.” Sam said from behind him as he walked out the door.

“Yeah? Watch me!” His chest hurt like a physical wound as he shut the door in Sam’s face.

He walked out into the parking lot to the Impala, where she sat ever faithful in her spot. 

As he turned the key and opened the door all the memories, no, the _lies _that had, or no, hadn’t, in fact, taken place in her front seat flooded his mind. Visions of Sam naked on top of him gasping and kissing him, telling him in panted moans how much he loved him, filled him. 

Dean yanked his hand back from the door like it had burned him. Then he hauled back and kicked the Impala as hard as he could, denting in the door with his boot as it slammed shut. He looked at the dent and laughed that sick pained laugh.

It was too much, all of it. A tear threatened to fall but instead he kicked the car again with all his might. Kicked it again. He kept on kicking it until the dent could go no deeper in the driver’s side door and his leg was throbbing in pain. He dropped his foot back to the pavement letting out a loud growling yell at the car and all the memories it contained in his head.

When he looked up, chest heaving, he locked eyes with Sam who was standing in the motel doorway watching him in shock, his arms hugged tight around himself. Sam opened his mouth, but honestly, there was nothing to say. Even though they were standing on the same patch of night-chilled cement, they were worlds apart now.

So much for keeping it in. 

Dean left on foot, walking up the long straight highway from the motel to anywhere but there.

***

The night was damp, as it was well into autumn on its way to winter, not spring like in his dream. He hated this season, everything looked dead. He shivered and kept on walking.

The bars were closed and Dean honestly had nowhere else to turn to that didn’t have Sam all over it in one way or another. He walked along the highway, down back roads, past houses with manicured lawns and their happy sleeping stupid families within. It didn’t matter where he went, he wasn’t there, he was lost in his own pain. 

The sun finally peeked out over the horizon, painting the sky a furious morning red and orange. Dean even hated sunsets and sunrises now. Everything made him think of Sam.

He found himself walking back through the motel parking lot without even meaning to. The dented Impala was still in her spot. He had no desire to fix her this time. 

He stood outside the door to their room. Staring at the crooked 6 that hung on it. Stood there until the sun came up fully in the sky and brought the warmth with it to finally heat up the cold fall morning. He watched his breath still pluming out in front of him, the hotel key gripped too tightly in his hand. 

He knew that there were things to be done, evil to be fought, the world was ending around them again, but his attitude right at that moment was “let it fucking end.”

He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t walk in there with another, “I’m fine” again because he wasn’t at all, in the least bit, fine.

If he went into that room now he was going to do something he couldn’t take back. He would ruin them forever. It scared him because some part of him wanted them to be ruined. To finally have no more secrets and let it all burn to the ground, him right along with it. No, he certainly wasn’t fine this time.

He hotwired the only other car in the parking lot, a rusted brown-copper Gremlin that suited his shitty mood perfectly. He scrawled out a fast note on a scrap of paper and tossed it onto the Impala’s front seat for Sam to find when he woke up. And drove off alone. 

_Sammy, don’t look for me. Stay safe.  
– Dean _

_***_

Dean sat alone at the small table staring out into the darkness beyond the dingy motel windows. When his blood had sufficiently turned into alcohol that night, he thought about calling Sam up. He had so many things he wanted to say. He wanted to tell Sammy how perfect the world had been with their love in it. How they had fit just right together, all of them tumbled together and whole. That maybe their love could save his soul even if it damned it, ‘cause what they had…it was beautiful. 

But he knew how insane it all sounded. He could never seem to find the words, those magic words to make it sound any better. He could picture Sam’s face, shocked and disgusted, and the line going dead after the first words out of his mouth.

Instead of calling Sam, Dean cracked his phone in half and left it in a trashcan the following day at the state line out of dodge.

He stayed in a constant liquor fueled stupor from there on out. He rarely slept and when he did fall down from exhaustion his sleep was always a dark dreamless hole. Lost time and nothing more. He woke more tired in spirit than when he had closed his eyes. No respite, it was what Hypnos had said it would be...

Eventually he joined up with some other hunters. Killed some evil. Felt nothing. Went off on his own. He abandoned the car for a motorcycle with no mocking passenger seat, and for awhile, out there alone, he thought about never going back. 

But…Sam. Sam. SAM. 

Nothing mattered unless he could share it with his brother. The days ticked by one after another, meaning nothing, no memories made. He didn’t give one fuck about the world, and it didn’t give one fuck about him. Except for Sam. He will always care about Sam. Which was the very reason he was broken in the first place. Isn’t life grand?

What he had with Sam was twisted and tangled up and it was making him into something he didn’t even understand any more. But what was he supposed to do? There was no help for what was eating Dean, no one to talk to that would understand what he was going through and he knew it. There was nowhere else to go. Keep driving aimlessly alone until the road gave out, or his liver did.

No. No matter what he did, he would always end up right there, at Sam’s side.

After too many miles to count, on a random Tuesday, Dean finally turned back east on the highway, back towards the town of Brokenbow. 

***

Dean drove through the small downtown, past all the hotels and motels dotting the main roads. He didn’t turn his head and look for the Impala, he kept on driving. He knew, without a doubt like he knew the sun would rise in the morning, that Sam would be there. Sam wanted revenge too, had probably been occupying his time by working on a way to finish off the dream god where they had left him, bound and sealed in the cave. If he hadn’t done it already.

The dream god… 

He drove through the town, to the outskirts, to the rolling hills of the desert, never slowing. Kept on going until he found himself parked in front of the sandy path that led down to the hidden cave entrance, out in the middle of literal nowhere.

The creature was still sitting in the gloom, after all these months, like it had all the time in the world. Dean supposed it did. A perk of being one of the endless. 

There were torches lit on the cavern walls and candles burning. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light Dean could see it was still wearing a dream version of Sam’s meat suit. It looked as if Sam himself was there. 

It sat below the now fading symbol painted on the wall above on an impressive throne chair made of sand. Hypnos had a crown of red poppy flowers woven in a ring in his - Sam’s - long hair, like a crown. He was waving his hand around at the sandy arm of the chair, which danced and moved under his fingers, taking on various shapes. They were crude outlines of things, not the detailed worlds like in dreams, just sandy little daydreams.

Dean stood for awhile in the shadows and watched him. He wasn’t a threat now. They had bound him, locked him down in the place. It was a similar spell to what they once used to bind Death. Hypnos was bound and had to do what their will asked of him. He was not allowed to enter the dream world, could not leave the cave, and could not harm Dean or anyone else. 

“Dean?” Hypnos said in Sam’s voice, sounding genuinely surprised when Dean stepped out of the shadows. He must have been surprised for it seemed his concentration broke and the sand throne sunk out from beneath him until he was seated on the ground. He didn’t rise to his feet, just gaped up at him from the floor as Dean stood over him looking down. 

The muscles in his jaw clenched tight. Dean was full of fury and hate and…sadness. 

“What do you want?” Hypnos asked, in Sam’s voice with a note of concern.

Dean glared. “Maybe I need to see you bleed.”

Mr. Monster still didn’t rise to his feet at that challenge. He moved his eyes from Dean and back to the small sand world he was creating before. The sand shifted and moved and looked like two lovers in the throes of passion. Dean stomped it with his boot, nearly catching the beast’s hand in the process. 

“You cannot kill me,” Hypnos said, eyes downcast to where Dean’s boot had smashed the daydream. “Your brother has been back several times to try already.”

“You know, I’ve had other gods say that same thing to me. But in the end they die all the same. I’m sure I _could_ kill you. But I didn’t say kill did I? I said bleed.” 

“Oh.” Hypnos sounded disappointed. He dusted his hands off on his jeans and slumped back against the cavernous wall. He looked exactly like Sam sitting there in the gloom. He had Sam’s broad shoulders, the moles on his cheek. Even the red flannel shirt that matched the poppies in his hair. He had on the favorite old worn jeans that real Sam always wore, they even had the same thread bareness around the knees. It was like Sam was really there, if Dean didn’t know better, he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. And that is what bothered him to the core.

He moved closer, his hands tightening into fists.

The Sandman turned his face up, turning it to the side, as if offering a place to land a blow. It hurt Dean to think about hitting Sam’s upturned face. Even if it wasn’t the real Sam, it had been the Sam he loved…in his dreams. 

He growled and slapped an open palm against the stone wall, the thump echoing through the empty space, waking a few moths that quickly flittered away. He turned and put his back against the wall and slid down and sat in the sand, next to Hypnos. Only an arm’s length of space between them. If either had wanted to hurt the other, it could be done, and quickly. 

“Why?” It encompassed everything Dean had come to ask. Just…_why?_

“I told you why. Revenge.”

“That was the longest goddamn set up for revenge there ever was.”

Not-Sam didn’t speak for a long time. Only moved his hand into the sand and let it run through his fingers. He had a melancholy look that Dean knew because he had seen Sam wear it often enough. 

“I suppose this means I won our prank war after all…” 

A smile at the memory flitted across Dean’s face, but was replaced just as fast with a fresh new pain.

“Is Hypnos your real name?” Dean asked changing the subject, trying hard not to lose it here, swallowing down the emotions that threatened to break him again. He didn’t understand why he needed to know, only that he did.

“Somnus, Morpheus, Phobetor, Baku, Nodens, the Sandman. I’ve had many names given to me through humankind’s limited time on this planet. Hypnos is as good as any other.” 

“Yeah. Well whoever you are, take my brother’s face off. Now.” 

“What face would you like me to wear?” 

“I want to see yours. Your real face, all fangs and horns, whatever vomit-inducing monstrosity you are hiding under there.” 

“I do not have a face,” The creature said. 

“You have a face. Everything has a face. What about that pale ugly thing I saw you have in the cave when Sam fought you the first time?”

“You are still very confused, aren’t you?” The creature shook its head, as if in pity, shook Sam’s head at him. “None of that happened in the waking world. That monster, that thing you saw, you were already dreaming. Your mind wouldn’t stop asking questions, wouldn’t let me in your doors. I had to give it a monster to kill first so it would believe the dream I was creating. Same with Sam, I had to create a world in his head too, to get him to tell me the things I needed to know about you.”

“Right. All a friggin’ dream.” Dean thought it over, let the memories of that world come back to him like he hadn’t done since he had awoken. It was still all too fuzzy, reality swirled together with dreams. “So when Sam was researching the Sandman that was actually you researching through my own mind. For what? Our shared knowledge on ways to keep Sam from waking me up?”

It gave a slow nod. 

“And when I came to with something shadowy at the foot of the bed, that wasn’t a sandman, that was Sam trying to break his way through and get my ass up out of the dream?” 

“Now you are understanding.”

“So you aren’t a nine foot tall bastard with an ugly raspy voice?” 

“I can be. If you want. But, no. Your mind needed a monster, Sam needed to save you from it. So it was created to get me through the doors inside your mind. Nothing more.”

“And that was all you in that fight huh? Throwing the match, watching us squirm. And of course Bobby is dead, you played that part too? And my father?”

“Yes, and no. Dreams and the human mind work in complicated ways. It would take me lifetimes to explain it all to you, especially in this limited language. Some of that was me, some of that was you. Think hard. You will recall you felt their emotions, saw things from their eyes as well as your own. Don’t you remember running the blade through the beast I conjured as if you were Sam at the same time that you were Dean? Dreams have no rules. I was Bobby on occasion when I needed to be. And of course I was Sam. But I was never your father. That was a vision from the very core of you, your subconscious. One very hard to fight.” 

There was a damp breeze through the cave and the flames danced on the walls casting strange moving shadows all about.

“My father is dead. He is a hero. And what you did was make me believe lies about him. Soiled his good memory.” 

“I gave you everything you ever asked for!” Not-Sam said defensively. The wind picked up and the sand around him whipped up into little dust devils that spun themselves out quickly. 

“You gave me lies. My father, the best part of me, came to warn me. But I didn’t listen. I was so quick to fall into the web that you were spinning.”

He punched his hand down into the sand. It hurt. His back hurt now too as he pressed it into the chilled stone wall, because if things weren’t bad enough, he was older now, much older than he had been in those dreams. 

“Lies?” The body of Sam shifted closer, his face turned into that perfect bitchy expression Sam always wore. “Every dream you had, everything left unsaid, undone in your life, I gave it to you. I healed you and fixed you and mended you in all the places you were broken. You were happy, that was the real problem in keeping you asleep. You, Dean Winchester, cannot stand to be happy!”

“Happy?” Dean turned and glared at him, his feelings of beating the thing’s face in renewing. 

“Yes, happy! I had to create the most realistic dream I’ve ever had a hand in, to make you happy. I turned every rule in the dream world upside down for you. I gave you things that shouldn’t exist in my realm, every gift. But your mind, it wouldn’t stop throwing up problems, wouldn’t stop looking for pain. And what were you running from when you had everything you ever wanted?” Not-Sam asked. “You ran from happiness.”

Dean just shook his head. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about me.”

“I know everything about you. Your mind wouldn’t stop saying _Sam Sam Sam Sam Sam_ from the moment I entered. I guess I should have known what your secret was then. I’m sure it is what your mind is crying out for even now.”

“Show me your face,” Dean said nearly reaching his boiling point.

The sandman crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking exactly like his brother at his most stubborn.

“Don’t make me remind you that you are under my control, Hypnos - whatever your name is, because you won’t like the things I’m gonna command you to do.”

Sam-monster raised an eyebrow as if that had been a dirty suggestion.

Dean fumed and clarified. “I bet you know a way you could be killed. I bet if I commanded you to kill yourself…” 

When he turned back the monster was a stark white mass, like a thick grainy fog, white sand and starlight. He had no shape and no face. He wasn’t lying. Tendrils of sand reached towards Dean and Dean turned his face away from it. “Something else then.” 

Hypnos changed into a large creature that filled up the cave in an instant. It had a man’s wretched human face with wild animal eyes, the long body of a lion, massive feathery wings and a tail that whipped and hissed like a snake. Dean cringed away from it. 

“Not a fan of Egyptian gods?” Hypnos’ voice boomed. The thing let out a nightmarish chuckle, shaking stones loose from the cavern ceiling. 

Dean pulled a knife.

“Is that a challenge little one?” the primordial being said. “You think you could defeat me, even now?”

“I’m the one that has you bound, asshole.” 

“Do you?” Hypnos roared with a smile, but did not expand on that statement.

Dean gripped the knife, looked at the creature straight on, no sign of backing down.

“Fine.” The thing cycled through faces, like it was trying on clothes.

The handsome movie star from Dean’s favorite TV show. “How about this one?” That face shifted into the singer from Dean’s favorite band. “No?”

It was a dog barking, an angel, a little boy, a unicorn. A dozen more faces and things. 

Dean moved like he was about to leave.

It turned then, shrinking fast. It melted right into the form of a man.

He sighed, “Humans are so boring.”

He had tattoos running over his shoulders and down his strong bare arms, galaxies made of moons and intricate patterns of stars. There were owl and raven feathers amongst the crown of poppies now. His pale hair fell down over one eye, it framed a face that time had never touched.

He was darkness and light, made from the shadows just before the night fell and the shimmer in the sky just before the dawn. His knowing eyes turned to look once more at Dean, they hinted of all the secrets behind them.

It may have been a human form, but his was an unearthly beauty.

“Someone gave this body to me in a dream a long time ago. One of the few mortals that was unafraid of me. I’ve worn this face for centuries.” He looked wistful then. “Such a long time ago...”

For some reason the creature choosing this form unnerved Dean more than anything else it could have picked. Because this form felt true.

“I suppose all the great gods are lonely.” He shook his head, coming back out of reveries. “I’ve updated the wardrobe some though. Animal skins are a little out of vogue.” He wore a grey tank top with the word “Goodnight” written across it. A pair of skinny black jeans and tall laced up boots.

“This is the closest, I think, that I have to a human body of my own.”

They sat in silence. Dean thought over all that had happened in his dreams.

Seeing the Sandman, with all its faces, and the final form he took now, drove the point home all the more that every memory he had, hadn’t been of Sam. He asked the same question that he still needed answered.

“Why?”

The man drew one long leg up to his body and put his arm around it. He laid his cheek against his knee and watched Dean. “Life is strange.” 

“That doesn’t answer a damn thing.” 

There was a mystery to his sly smile. “Dreams are better. You get all the thrills with no need for complications like explanations.” 

When Dean just sat waiting, Hypnos sighed. “Revenge. I told you. When the news got to me of what you had done to my brother, I came out into the real world. It was the first time in many, many years that I left dreams and took a corporeal form. I wanted to make you suffer. I put the spark for the case out here in your world - Juliane and Justine in trouble. Don’t you remember? A little torture and you and Sam came running. Heroes can never say no when you catch a whiff of damsels in distress. You walked right in like you knew what to expect. Cocky little mortals. And down you went, right to sleep.” 

He gestured with his hand and the sand danced under it and made a grainy version of Sam and Dean running before being pelted with sand and tumbling down to sleep. 

“Did you kill those women?” Dean asked. 

“They awoke in their beds, aware of nothing more than a few nightmares. I had what I wanted, which was you.” 

The creature eyed Dean again, studying his face. Its eyes moved lower. “I thought about snapping your neck then,” it said, voice going cold. “Held your life in my hand, felt your pulse grow quick with the nightmares I was giving you. But that did not seem satisfying, that seemed a kindness in fact. I wanted to take something more from you. But you can’t torture someone who has nothing left for you to take away. I needed to know your secrets so I entered your dreams, your subconscious. But you had doors locked even to me. I used your brother to get to them, to get you to open all your doors to him, and the shadow that clung to him. You wanted escape, wanted to dream so badly, that you would have been another Rip Van Winkle. But Sam, I couldn’t keep him asleep once he figured it out.” 

Dean felt guilty for that. His little brother figured it out. He should have somehow known. 

“He would not give up, no matter what I did to him. Every time he got through the barriers into dreams, he’d find a way to get to your subconscious mind and try to speak its language. He’d scratch out “Wake Up” into some new place, or leave you songs playing with hints, movies on in the background as clues, leave you trails of sand to follow. I had to make up something new for your mind to accept every time. I needed to keep you asleep long enough to make it hurt.” 

Dean realized any time his mind posed a question, the Sandman had found an answer. Hypnos had created a world around Dean so fantastic, that when it tumbled down it was guaranteed to take him with it. 

“I’ve seen everything in the dream world through the ages. But when I finally got your black door open, I tossed Sam out of the dream world completely and went in his place. But I didn’t expect to find…”

“That sickness in me,” Dean said quietly. 

Hypnos shook his head, the feathers in his hair twirling, “No. True love. I didn’t expect to find true love in you. You don’t have any idea how rare that is, how powerful. Even if it is…one sided.” 

The last words stabbed at Dean, cut his already flayed feelings.

“Love. That was your secret. And I knew I could break you with it.”

“Congratulations,” Dean said coldly. He finally put the knife back in his boot and then leaned his head against the wall. He closed his eyes and let out a bitter laugh. “You really won. I am sitting in the dark down here with you, thinking about a fight to the death. That is where I am at. So, Brav-fucking-o.”

“Dreams are powerful things. When you lose them…” Hypnos paused, pressing his lips together. He went back to twirling his fingers in the sand.

Then the creature said the most unexpected thing– “I’m sorry.” 

Dean turned his head in surprise. Hypnos’ eyes seemed to be a kaleidoscope of colors now, all of them tinged with sadness. He looked like he was truly sorry. Dean had no idea why. 

“I am sorry too, about your brother,” Dean said, surprising himself as well, not even aware of the words before they came out of his mouth. But he meant them. “I did what I had to, to save Sam. Death didn’t leave me any choice. But I am so sorry for it.”

“Would you have accepted that answer if the roles were reversed? If I had plunged Sam’s own knife into his chest? Would you forgive me?” 

“No,” Dean said without a pause. “You were going to kill him though, weren’t you? Sam was pretty busted up when I finally came to.”

He gave him a dark look, “You killed mine first.” 

Dean gazed down into his hands thinking of all the terrible things they had done. The damage this world had seen from him being in it. 

“I saw in your mind all that happened. I replayed it for a long time when I first entered your head. You do nothing that doesn’t have a pure motive…with all the foolishness of a good man in a bad world. But that did not ease my pain. So yes, I was taking bits of Sam slowly over time, draining him of his memories and his life force every time he entered my realm trying to wake you up. The more he came in, the more I took, the more I became him. I used what I stole to fully be him in your mind. But I did give him a chance, which is more than you offered to my brother. I returned to the waking world, I told him to go, that you were what I wanted. But he would not listen.”

Hypnos frowned and let the sand fall from his fingers once more. “At the end I thought the only way to keep Sam out would be to kill him. He too was leaving me no choice. Wouldn’t that have been justice? A brother for a brother?”

Dean was silent.

He continued, “But then…”

“Then?”

“I was picking you apart and pulled away all there was on the outside and got down to the very core of what you are.”

Dean braced himself. 

The corner of its lips tugged up in a smile, “You love a car more than most humans love each other.” 

It was not what he expected the creature to say. 

He pulled a flower from his hair. He twirled the poppy stem between his pale fingers, the blood red bloom spinning. “Your love and devotion to all the human race runs deeper than Tartarus. I understood why my dear Death had a hard time himself with the end of you. You are so alive, Dean. In all the dreams I have visited, I have never encountered anything like you.” 

He watched Hypnos curiously as he leaned over and put the flower in Dean’s hair.

As if that was a normal thing to do. Dean pulled it out, crumpled it in his hand and tossed it to the ground. He didn’t know what it meant, but he didn’t like it.

“I learned why you did what you did for your brother. True love is fierce. I cannot forgive it, but…I understand it…and…and then worse!”

The dark eyes soon turned back to the familiar hazel, as he filled out the space, becoming Sam once more. It was Sam’s mouth, his deep voice as he said, “I fell in love with you.”

Dean scoffed, nearly laughed. “You gotta be joking, right? I think you and I have different definitions for that word. You were trying to get me to kill myself in there at the end.”

“Pay attention! That was your own self loathing and your subconscious trying to wake you up. None of that was me. Your brother broke in and I had to leave you to the dream world of your own making while I tried to remove him. But he dragged me out into the awake world, tried to kill me. Without my influence in your mind, your world reverted back to the only things you know. Dark terrible nightmares. I had no hand in doing that!”

Dean didn’t want to believe it. Hadn’t been ready for this kind of explanation. But it had the ring of truth that he had come here to find.

“You think I wanted this to happen?” Not-Sam said. “I wanted to hate you. I still want to hate you!”

Hypnos looked disgusted with itself.

“I spent all that time with you trying to make you fall in love, make you happy so I could destroy you...and I... ” The beast got a far off look then. “I have witnessed the miracle of the first human dream…”

The Sam-thing turned towards him. “But somehow you and your love are beautiful like nothing I have ever known. You embrace it all, you eat life up whole. I saw everything you were and that you deserved to have true love back. And worse, I wanted you to have it. I-I fell in love with you. That is the truth. _That_ is the answer to your _why_. You were my enemy. And I’ve broken my own heart!” 

This thing was clever. It had been lying to him with the most believable lies from the very start. Coming up with a lie for every truth. Love. What kind of answer was that?

“I wanted to keep you. The only real thing that has ever been mine.”

‘Mine. You are _mine_.’ Dean realized all the many times ‘Sam’ had said that word, it was not from the mouth of a lover, but the possessive words of a monster gone mad. 

“All you had to do was be mine...but your brother busted into our dreams, and he shot me! By doing so he shot a hole clean through our dream, and that was waking you up. I had barely enough strength to send him out again and reset our world. But your mind would not believe it then, you would not listen, you questioned everything. And questions and doubts are poison to dreams, don’t you understand? They weaken our world - they wake you. He came back again too quickly and I had to leave you on your own, and go out and try to stop him. I barely made it back into the dreamscape, and then there you were, standing at the door between realms...”

“I don’t want to hear any more of this.”

“But Dean, why couldn’t you have stayed? If only you hadn’t opened that damn door. I would have loved you forever.” 

“You know what you’ve done to me and you want to call it love? You’re sick,” Dean said bluntly.

“You think me a terrible thing, selfish. But that isn’t what we had. We created a perfect world together. I did everything you asked, everything you wanted was yours. Everything! You wanted a monster, I gave you one! You wanted Bobby’s acceptance, lost summer days with Sam, a chance at happiness. You wanted your brother and I served him up on his knees to you-” 

“Stop!” Dean felt revulsion at the monster – revulsion at himself. Guilt threatened to consume him again as he thought of all he had done with this beast.

“The more I took of Sam, the more I truly became him, don’t you get it? I have nearly all his memories now. In that dream…I am him. We can still be happy. I felt every bit of your happiness in that dream like I have never felt anything before, it was so strong. True love is the strongest magic there is. I used it to slow time for you. We could have lived forever together. But you choose this?” Sam-monster gestured around to the dark bleakness about them. “This life of finite experience? My question for you now is _why_?”

Its voice, Sam’s voice, went so sad. “What better things can you have out here - in the distress and the pain - that I could not give you tenfold in there, in your own heaven better than any that the other gods have ever offered to any human? Anything you wanted! Don’t you understand? Anything! There isn’t a man alive that would turn down his wildest dreams.” 

“You are the one that ain’t getting’ it. It isn’t _real_.”

“Real. What is so good about real?” Hypnos said, voice quivering. “You think you’ll get a happily ever after out there? They don’t exist in your ‘real’.” 

The cave had been warm when he entered but Dean felt chilled now. He looked over at his dream Sam. It had moved steadily nearer to him. It was exactly Sam’s face, the slant of his eyes, the curve of his lips. But it was a beautiful face housing a dark and awful god inside of it. 

“You are twisting words like you twisted my dreams. You don’t love me, you don’t know a damn thing.” 

“I know you better than _he _ever will.” 

The words cut through him. “That doesn’t make it real.”

Hypnos moved, suddenly leaning across the space between them. Sam’s hand was on Dean’s face once more, a loving touch, his mouth pressing into Dean’s. The feel of his lips, the sweep of his tongue, the taste of him as he kissed Dean passionately, it felt like Sam. Down to the last detail. Dean wanted to push him away. But he didn’t. The kiss took him into dreams once more of what could be. Into a sweetness and an agony most exquisite. 

"Dean," he murmured as he leaned away, taking the dreams with him. His fingers still stroked along Dean’s jaw, eyes on his lips as he whispered, “Doesn’t that feel real to you?”

It was perfect as it had always been, too perfect, in fact. Dean should have known right there. Kissing in the real world doesn’t feel that way, a real kiss isn’t fireworks. Dean wiped the back of his hand against his mouth.

“Our dream world was better than a thousand realities and you know it.” Sam’s strong hand dropped to his arm, his fingers…wait, not _his fingers_, touched lovingly at Dean’s skin, then encircled his wrist, trembling, trying to keep him close. 

“It is wrong of them all to expect you to keep soldiering on, Dean. What are you even fighting for any more out there? There is nothing for you…Aren’t you tired?” 

Yes. Dean was very tired. 

“Do you hear the murmur of the river that runs through this place? Listen.” It paused then and Dean could hear it. The quiet babbling of water over stone in the far off distance. Had heard it while he slept, which would explain all the rain and water and showers in his head.

“It is Lethe, river of forgetfulness. A single sip and you wouldn’t even have to recall any of this sadness. One word and I could spin you brand new dreams. Everything you want you will have, the world will be safe. You can be with Sam forever. Happy.”

“No.”

Its lips trembled. “…Or we will always have our lake, our stolen days. All of our love there. If you want we could go back, we could stay this time…we-” 

“No.” Dean said again. It was torture the creature had been after and he had fully succeeded now, and more with every word it spoke. “There is no we.” 

“I love you,” Sandman Sam implored. “Why isn’t love enough?” 

“Because you… you aren’t _him_.” Dean felt so empty now, so ripped apart by what he was feeling he thought it ought to leave scars, bloody jagged things all over him that never healed.

His normally strong and deep voice broke as his words flooded out, “You aren’t him. You’re not even human. You’re not anything. You are an empty space of nothing! A monster without even a face.” 

It let go of his wrist. Looked away. It wept.

Dean stood to leave. Broken more now than when he had come.

“You are leaving me?” Hypnos said without turning back.

“Yes.” 

It nodded. “We are enemies then.” 

“Oh yeah.” Dean said over his shoulder and began to walk back towards the mouth of the cave.

“I think sometimes that love makes us monsters more so than hate,” Hypnos said in reply. He twirled his fingers once more in the sand, making the shape of Dean’s face. He went to touch it but it crumbled and disappeared under his fingertips. “I wasn’t a monster before I met you.” 

Dean stopped walking. “In momento et ictu oculi abeas et hinc proripias,” he began. He chanted the full spell and unbound Hypnos, setting him free. He turned and locked eyes with him. 

The flickering light of flames from the torches on the walls reflected off Sam’s tear stained face as he looked up at him once more. Even in the gloom the expression was clearly hopeful.

“The score is settled now. If you come for me again, if I ever see your face, any of them, I will kill you.” 

The Not-Sam replied, voice thick with sorrow, “Acta est fabula, my love.”

Dean left without another word. 


	3. My Soul to Take

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
Carry on my wayward son  
There'll be peace when you are done  
Lay your weary head to rest  
Don't you cry no more  
– [Kansas](https://youtu.be/9Kf8a3vcjUc)

“Hey,” Dean said as casually as he could as he slid into the motel room. 

He hadn’t called, simply drove to the first hotel in the phone book from where he last left Sam, as per their code when they got separated. He found the Impala sitting outside room eight of the shady looking Aloha Motel. He picked the lock to the motel room and let himself in. 

“Dean? Jesus, are you alright? Where have you been?” Sam moved from off the bed like the world’s biggest spring towards Dean. He was only half dressed, kind of dusty, and Dean knew he had been down in the cave himself today, trying to kill Hypnos. 

Sam continued walking towards him, an impending brotherly hug in his body language. “I’ve been searching everywhere, I’ve been–”

But Dean cut him off, moved away from him. He knew that he’d never be able to be near Sam again without remembering the feel of him, the taste of him, like blood in his mouth. He wouldn’t let Sam touch him if he could help it, hugs were back to near death experiences only, like they should be, and nothing more. Absolutely nothing more. 

“Dean?” 

Dean looked at the wall above the little table where Sam had notes on the sandman tacked up, and information on Dean’s last known whereabouts. Surveillance footage of him coming out of a gas station, discarded credit card receipts. It was actually pretty good work. Dean was impressed. He found the longer he stood there, the harder it was to turn and face Sam. He thought about what the Sandman had said - about love making us monsters. 

He could feel Sam’s eyes on him, the tension of him waiting for a response, but what could he say? That love had made him a monster too, one that didn’t know how to let Sam go.

Dean put his best mask of held-in emotions on. “I’m here. I’m fine. Case closed.” He ripped some of the receipts and pictures off the wall, wadded them up and chucked them towards the small trashcan.

Sam’s arms fell to his sides. “You’re…fine? That’s it?”

“Yeah.” 

He was terrified that Sam was going to take one look into his haunted eyes and know. Know his twisted Jaime and Cersei Lannister thoughts.

He dodged looking at him altogether. Sam had Dean’s duffel bag sitting on the bed closest to the door, as if he had never left. He walked over to it and fished out a half empty bottle of liquor from the bottom and then pushed the bag off the bed. He wanted to fill every space in himself with booze. _And god, there are so many empty spaces inside him now._

Sam fumed, nostrils flaring. Getting into that shoulders-up, tight stance he always did when he felt Dean had wronged him. “I haven’t heard from you in months. You could have been dead for all I knew. Not even a freaking phone call. And you are ‘fine’? I mean what the hell, Dean?” 

“What do you want me to say? I left you a note, I told you not to bother. I needed to clear my head. It’s clear.”

Sam watched as Dean kicked off his boots, not bothering to get undressed otherwise, he flopped down onto the mattress an arm thrown behind his head. A little hula girl statue wiggled her hips on the bedside table. This place wasn’t even decorated ironically, just sadly, a million miles from the tropical island, stuck in Middle America hell. He knocked the little dancer to the floor when he reached for the remote. He flipped on the TV to drown Sam out, a typical Dean move. He then picked up the bottle. 

“You know, this ‘strong silent’ thing of yours, it's crap. I know it went bad back there.” 

“Back off, alright? Just because I'm not sharing like you want me to. I’m here!” Dean didn’t need to be called out on his phony front. This mask of lies was all he had after all.

“You want an apology? I’m sorry your panties are in a twist, Samantha. There, happy?” He knew he was being a dick now, but Sam’s justifiable anger spurred him on.

He spun the lid off with his thumb, letting it roll down and onto the floor, past the broken hula girl, where it came to rest against Sam’s foot.

Not even bothering with a glass, he took a pull straight from the bottle.

All Dean wanted was to leave right now, to stand up and walk right back out that door again. Because Sam’s brotherly love for him was like this motel room. A thing of convenience. A thing needed for now, but moved on from easily, because it wasn’t important. It was never home to Sam. Dean felt cheap like the thin blanket he was laying on, old and worn out like the springs in the mattress. But he could never leave Sam. Even if Sam was always leaving him.

“Relax.” He still hadn’t looked at Sam, kept his eyes straight ahead on the TV. He drank, even though he had difficulty swallowing, his throat thick with emotion. He repeated his mantra, more to himself than to Sam, “I’m fine.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you look fine,” Sam said sarcastically, a deep frown on his face. Dean had lost too much weight, his face gaunt. Dark circle rimmed his eyes. Eating and sleeping were two out of three of Dean’s favorite activities. If he hadn’t been doing those, he wasn’t fine. But they both already knew that. 

“My life is sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.” 

“Dean. Come on. Talk to me. Where have you been?” Sam sat down on the bed as close to Dean as he could get, his anger dropping back to concern. “We never even got to talk about the whole thing that happened back there. Are you alright? Did it–”

“I’m okay! Okay? Jesus! If you ask me one more goddamn time if I am alright, I am gonna start throwing punches.” Dean finally snapped.

He remembered the vow he had made to never hit Sam again. The vow made…in his dreams. The feeling of bile rising up in his throat was chased down with another drink of whiskey from the bottle as fast as he could. 

Talk. What was he supposed to say? This was the real world not some slashy together-together thing like one of Chuck’s rabid fan girls would write.

In the real world, you lie. 

“Dean. Please. Can’t we…”

Because in the real world you don’t get to go around announcing your very wrong fucked up feelings. There are no happy endings here. The Sandman was right. 

Dean turned his head on his pillow and looked at Sam. His expression was clearly, 'We are never talking about this. Ever.’ 

Sam closed his mouth. He sat on the edge of the bed looking straight at Dean, with a silence not dissimilar to that preceding a thunderstorm.

A long uncomfortable stretch of time passed, and Dean managed to drain most the rest of the bottle, his own eyes back on the TV though he saw nothing passing in front of them. He forced a smile as the canned laughter from a fake audience played from the ancient television speakers. 

Sam finally stood up. His tall form overshadowing Dean.

Dean held his breath, not sure what he was expecting his brother to do. He clutched the bottle, but it made a terrible spooning partner. 

“Welcome back,” Sam said, his voice flat.

He walked toward the bathroom and shut the door behind him. The only privacy in the tiny space.

The click of the lock in the bathroom door felt like some finality between them. 

Dean wanted to scream and keep screaming, kick in the door, shake Sam and say - Yes, yes, goddamn yes of course he wanted to talk! He wanted to plead and beg and make Sam understand. The desire to do just that was so strong, until he was actually shaking with it. But he wanted Sam to stay with him, not leave him again to some life he was not welcome in. And he could not have both. 

He heard the water start up for the shower.

The room blurred in front of him, as he finally, for the first time since he awoke from the Sandman’s world, let the tears come. They were hot as they fell down his face.

He cried. Hated himself for crying. And wished for dreams... 

***

“You ever think about checking out A.A.?” Sam said half seriously as Dean finished his drink in two hard gulps. 

“I don't have a drinking problem, Sam, except when I can't get a drink.”

Dean smiled at his own joke and tapped his empty glass with his ring to get the bartender’s attention. 

They had been back on the road together for weeks now and Dean was drinking his way through the contiguous forty-eight. This bar was cheap and dirty and Dean thought it suited him well. He didn’t think Sam was going to follow him in. Thought he’d opt to return to their hotel and work on the case. But there he was, putting his folder of papers down on the bar next to him in their dark little corner. He was Dean’s constant shadow-of-worry as of late.

The bartender, a young woman with a long blond ponytail sticking out of a pink cowboy hat, a tight little body and flirty eyes, set down another drink and an El Sol beer along with it in front of Dean. She said with a cute Texas drawl, “One’d think that whiskey was water the way you’re going. Might want to pace yourself, darlin’.”

He was still sitting upright. Dean considered that pacing himself. 

“Only if you want to give me a reason to,” he flirted.

She winked and then was flagged down to the other side of the bar, still tossing glances his way as she went. It was easier for Dean, amongst strangers, drifting from arms to arms, making up a story about who he was and believing it himself, if only for the night. 

Sam had his nose buried in a case file when Dean turned back to him. He peered over and saw the notes on their current case, the vanishing town folks of Sunshine Hill, and Gothenburg, Texas, was currently covered by the information they had on the dream god himself, Hypnos. Sam wasn’t letting it go. 

Dean turned back to his drink. He used every day that passed as another 24 hours to shove all his feelings, those sticky-sweet, pretty emotions of love, that he’d gladly cut out of himself with a dull knife if he thought he could reach them, back down as deep inside as they’d go. Safe and sound in the depths of his rotten soul, buried twenty thousand leagues under the whiskey. He didn’t like reminders. 

Sam looked up from his papers, taking a big breath into his chest. He glanced around at the various patrons at the bar. He kept his voice low, leaned in a little closer than Dean liked as he asked, “You ever worry maybe we are still dreaming?”

“Nope.”

Sam turned and looked at the profile of Dean’s face, studying it like he was going to give a dissertation on it later. “You say that like you have no doubts. How do you know we are awake now?” 

“Because everything _sucks_,” Dean emphasized the word hard and then slammed back the whiskey harder. He licked his lips and ignored the way he could feel Sam frowning at him. Didn’t consider how cute his worry creases were. Didn’t give any thought to how good he smelled today, or the way those jeans fit his lean legs... 

“Pulvis et umbra sumus.”

“Hmm?”

Sam’s face was back to his notes. “It's a line from Horace. ‘We are but dust and shadow'. That was all that was scrawled on the cave wall when I went back in.”

Dean had been losing pieces of himself his whole life. Things taken, things given, things simply lost along the road. Nothing remained, he thought, watching Sam as he rifled through his notes. The man sitting on this barstool, wearing his jacket, was nothing but pain, blood, guts, and a bottle and a half of the cheapest whiskey. Dust and shadows indeed. 

Dean shook his head, “Gotta love the ironic monsters.”

“I just can’t figure out how Hypnos got out. That spell was ironclad. He should be rotting in that cave for eternity.” He turned back to Dean concerned for his sanity. “You know we are still going to find that thing and we are going to kill it.” 

The lies between him and Sam were already back full force, so what was one more on top of the heap? It had been easier lately actually. To lie so smooth and neat. It seemed to be keeping the peace between them. “Yeah, Sammy. I know.” 

Hypnos… 

Dean only had good dreams as of late. Dreams of happier times and better days. He wasn’t sure now if the dreams were a gift from Hypnos or a curse. Because he still had to wake up every morning to his reality. Maybe that was the point. 

He didn’t know how he was supposed to do it every day, how he was suppose to breath and keep going. He’d wake up from some happy place inside and see Sam standing at the hotel sink, brushing his teeth, and for just a second he’d forget and feel that true happiness again. Until Sam would catch his eyes in the mirror, see Dean watching him and give him a strange face in return, only then would Dean remember everything he had lost. He had to relive that painful moment over and over and over again. Because it was like he hadn’t woken up all at once to reality. He had to lose things slow. The taste of Sam’s kiss against his lips, the feel of him fading from his arms, though the ache never did. Every time Sam got too close and Dean went to touch him without thinking, or worse, when Sam would touch him, as his touch no longer consoled Dean, only devastated him further. Every single trip in the Impala – hurt. Every time he put his hand out for Sam in the night and only found empty space in the cold bed where the warmth of his body once was and would never be again, had never in fact been in the first place… 

At night in the dark, Dean let the tears keep him company. During the day he let the alcohol do the job. Hunt, kill, drink. Repeat.

Sam finally flagged down the bartender, giving in to the idea of a beer, though ordering “the gayest one” according to Dean. 

“So, what is your take on the new case?” Dean asked when the silence got too uncomfortable. He tipped over his empty glass and watched the tiny bits of booze soak into the napkin. “I’m thinking ghouls. Fingers crossed for stripper zombies.” 

“Really? That is it? Just going to change the subject again?” Sam asked. “Not one thought on Hypnos being out there on the loose?” 

They hadn’t talked about this much at all even though Sam kept on trying. 

“I never did exactly hear a reason on why I couldn’t get you to wake up. You left me out there for monster food, for what? A few laughs with fake dad and Bobby? You and me fixing up the Impala? I don’t buy it.” When Dean still gave no reply Sam rolled his eyes and looked away. 

Dean was drunk and worn thin.

“Hypnos offered me all my wildest dreams come true, Sam. That what you want to hear?”

His eyes turned to his brother for only the briefest moment, before flicking away to stare at the bartender once more.

“Not some Djinn wish granted where he actually got it wrong and it would end with me used up like a crushed beer can in a week. That sandy bastard was offering me actual happiness. Trust me, it was revenge like nothing I could ever put into words to be able to explain to you. I’d rather go back to hell.” 

Sam was quiet for a moment, really hearing the pain Dean was sharing. “Dean. I mean, I'm your brother. I, I just wish you'd talk to me about it.”

_Careful what you wish for,_ Dean wanted to say. That dangerous glint must have shown in his eyes because Sam sipped at his beer and said nothing more until he had drained it. Then he went to slowly pulling the label off in little pieces.

“Well, I'm glad you dug yourself out, Dean. Whatever it was. Most people wouldn't've had the strength.” 

Dean knew if Sam actually understood what he dug himself out from, he’d tell him he should have stayed asleep, or anywhere else as long as it was far away from him. Two monsters in love. Fucking ridiculous. 

He moved the focus off of himself, “So, when the Sandman had you under too, how much ass was I kicking in your dream?”

“You…” Sam shifted on his stool, and made a low cough sound in his throat, “Uh, you weren’t in my dream.”

A lot of Dean’s hard edges had been worn away. He didn’t have as much armor now so couldn’t hide the hurt in his voice. “Really. That is…_perfect_.”

“Dean…” 

“What? I gave up my dreams to save your ass, and you, you didn’t even think about me once in yours? I didn’t even get a 30 second cameo?” Dean knew his heaven was Sam’s hell, but still, ouch.

He was so far past empty now, like a car sputtering to a stop in the middle of a desert highway, no help in either direction for a hundred miles. He slid off his bar stool. 

“Come on Dean. It isn’t like that.”

“Save it.”

Sam grabbed his arm, his face full of concern, “I’m sorry. I just, I– ” 

Dean shook his head and put his hand up to ward off any lifetime movie moments Sam was trying to have here.

“It’s fine. You know why? That is life. Sometimes you just gotta take all the crap and you gotta bury it. Haven’t I told you this before? You bury it deep, because that’s the only way to keep your head up and keep going. So consider this topic buried. Until you get a solid lead,” which Dean knew he’d never get, “do not bring up the Sandman to me again.” 

Sam let his hand slip away from Dean’s arm. He looked like a kicked puppy.

Dean couldn’t help but give him a reassuring brotherly pat on the shoulder, a Pavlovian response. The first time he had really touched Sam since that monster. He wasn’t mad at Sam, after all. It didn’t matter what he did, what he said, Dean’s heart still beat with _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

But something was destroyed in Dean that he knew could never be fixed, didn’t want it to be. It was a type of sad sickness now, where nothing could possibly be any worse. All Dean really wanted was for it to stop now. Dust and shadows, dust and fucking shadows. Bury it! 

Yeah, he was going to fight like hell to hide the fact he had given up. Sam was his brother. He was here right now. And that…god, that had to be enough. 

He smiled a little too big and squeezed Sam’s shoulder one last time. “Relax Sam. When it comes down to it, what is one more nightmare anyway?”

Then he vanished into the crowd. 

***

♬♪♫_…Keep you free from sin, 'Til the sandman he coooomes… _♫♬♪

  
Sam heard the song playing over the bar's jukebox and it sent an unpleasant tingle of déjà vu through him. He spun on his barstool to look through the crowd for the familiar shape of his brother but couldn’t find him. He hated lying, but what was he supposed to tell Dean about what he really dreamed about? It wasn’t like the truth was an option here. But Sam had never seen Dean like this. Everything since the Sandman was wrong. 

Over the years they had literally both been through hell and back, had said the meanest things two brothers could possibly say to one another, but this… His brother had never been good with feelings, but the way he was like a ghost at Sam’s side was something far worse. It was all covered in his normal macho bravado, Dean is Dean, but even then, it was like he barely had the will to keep that up. 

Everything between them was just off, and everything Sam did made it worse. He didn’t know how to fix it. All Sam knew was he wanted that monster’s head on a spike. And of course, as normal, he couldn’t even do that right. The thing had up and vanished without a trace. The silence it left between them now, hurt worse than any bullet or fist ever could. And all Sam could do was stand there saying he was sorry. Again. Damn it. 

He twisted on his barstool. “Can I get a whiskey? Double, neat,” he asked the other bartender on duty. “Actually, just leave the bottle.” He tossed a wad of cash on the counter trying not to think about anything at all, but failing as the bartender set a clean glass down in front of him. 

Whatever Dean had lost in that dream was what had him on lockdown now. Probably a paradise of tits, land flowing with booze and honeys. Maybe he had a wife? Maybe it was just a break from the shit that was their lives. Maybe Sam wasn’t the world’s worst brother, and actually didn’t fail him day in and day out. But damned if Dean was ever going to talk to Sam about that anyway. 

He took a drink and let it burn its way down into his body. He wasn’t a big drinker, but tonight he wanted to finally hit enough and forget... 

The thought passed through his mind then. Maybe it was worse, so much worse, maybe Dean already knew? What if he knew he was a _freak_? Sam closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. No. No way. Couldn’t be. Dean wouldn’t be here then. He took two shots in rapid succession. He shook it off.

All he knew was he needed to make Hypnos good and dead.

Sam’s eyes locked onto Dean who flashed him a big smile as he made his way through the crowded bar back towards him. Maybe Dean was going to be okay, if Sam could pull it together they were both going to be okay. Dean was smiling, so Sam forced a smile too. The feelings of wrongness in his gut starting to dissipate. …That is until he saw Dean’s arm slung around the waist of his conquest of the night, the blond bartender he had been flirting with earlier. Her intoxicated laugh grated on Sam’s last nerve as Dean introduced them. That is what Dean always seemed to do. Find some place to bury his troubles. 

“Heeey, little brother, you can make it back to the hotel yourself right?” Dean said with a drunken grin. “You know, _after_…” He gestured towards his date with his head, “after a while that is.” 

Sam gave Dean a wan smile and nod in return before taking another swig from his glass. 

His brother held the bar door open and the giggling tart headed outside toward their Impala. 

Sam set his glass down, turned back and saw Dean, his arm still holding the door open, lost in thought looking right at him. They gazed at one another for a long moment from across the room, all the smoke and banter of patrons around them falling away. This felt like the first time they had looked at one another, really looked, in what felt like decades.

A strange expression spread out on Dean’s face. It wasn’t a thumbs up like he often gave, it wasn’t a wiggle of his eyebrows because he was about to get laid. This was a look completely unfamiliar to Sam. He thought having lived in each other’s back pocket for most of their lives that he knew every tic and twitch of Dean’s face. But there they were, a dozen little micro-expressions, and all of them foreign. Sad eyes on a happy face.

He suddenly wanted to get Dean to fucking talk to him, really talk to him, just this once, just right now, tell him how he could fix this. Oh god, please. Talk to him! 

But then the moment was gone. Dean broke eye contact with Sam, turning away. Giving a wave.

“Bye. Sam.” And headed out into the night, the door swinging closed behind him.

Sam sat blinking at the closed door. The noise of the place returning to him. He was imagining things. He knew that. That monster had screwed with his head. That’s all. But then they never said bye, not even on the phone. Sam could count the number of times Dean had said ‘bye’ to him on one hand and none of them had ever been good. He felt like he had really screwed things up this time, but he didn’t know how.

He turned back to his notes on the current case looking for his own distraction, taking Dean’s advice to bury it. Bury it all, and bury it deep. There was darkness out there, maybe not as dark as what was inside of him, but at least that was darkness he could try to fight…

***

An Impala sailed down a long stretch of country highway, the purr of her motor and tires on asphalt the only sounds. There are two soulmates inside going only god knows where, and maybe not even he knew any more. There were things broken and unsaid and a life of loss between them. But somehow they would learn to stand it. Shoulder to shoulder. This was them... carrying on.

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ending is dedicated to those that broke my heart the most. 
> 
> Dollface. The sunshine of my days.  
The Giant. Whom whisked me off my feet and inspired all love scenes. And fight scenes.  
My Roommate. Story editor. Best friend. Brother. Soulmate. Sam to my dumbass Dean. 
> 
> _“If we shadows have offended,_  
_Think but this, and all is mended—_  
_That you have but slumbered here_  
_While these visions did appear._  
_And this weak and idle theme,_  
_No more yielding but a dream.”_  
_― Shakespeare_
> 
> ***
> 
> Thank you to everyone reading this story to completion, and especially to all those that left me comments and kindness along the way. ♥


End file.
